No. 4.] MILK PROBLEM. 31 



protect themselves. Our standards of cleanliness as a people 

 are in these days being raised to and established on a higher 

 plane. These changes are primarily due to the fact that the 

 scientist in his laboratory, equipped with modern appliances 

 and with a knowledge of modern methods of laboratory pro- 

 cedure, has, during the past few years, been studying and 

 developing the comparatively new science of bacteriology. 

 He has been finding out why and how things happen. He 

 has discovered some imj)ortaut facts relating to milk supplies, 

 the relation of germ life to milk, and, through milk acting 

 as a carrier of germ life, the relation of the milk supply to 

 disease. 



As a result of the development of the science of bacteri- 

 ology we, in these days may have, if we will, a very definite 

 knowledge of germ life and its relation to milk, and to dis- 

 ease, that was not possible for our grandfathers or for many 

 of our fathers. We are now approaching the time when 

 cleanliness in dairy work, as in some other lines of work, 

 will no longer be a matter of personal opinion, — with each 

 individual having a standard of his own that suits his own 

 convenience, — Init where instead cleanliness will be a meas- 

 urable condition and a matter of fact as established by 

 laboratory processes. A thorough study of market milk con- 

 ditions as they actually exist is to be urged, and this applies 

 to milk producers, dealers and consumers, to health officials, 

 dairy inspectors and particularly to practicing physicians, 

 whose peculiar influence in the homes of the people is far- 

 reaching. When each fully appreciates and understands 

 the problems of the other, the producers and dealers will 

 recognize and understand the reasonableness of most health 

 requirements relating to the milk supply, and health officers 

 and inspectors will realize that educational work should in 

 most cases precede the exercise of police powers, and that 

 a reasonable time should be allowed producers and dealers 

 for the improvement of the milk supplies. Then, too, con- 

 sumers of milk will find upon investigation that in buying 

 milk at the prevailing prices they are securing food values 

 for about 50 cents that if purchased in other desirable forms 



